Week Six-Shield of Faith

Lesson of the week- God protects us with the shield of Faith against Satan's flamming arrows. We are to stand firm in our faith knowing God is true and faithful.

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Week 5- Camp Week

This week we had 6 kids go to Timberlake Ranch Camp, where they had a blast. Those that stayed back at Obasi worked on crafts and just had some quiet fun.

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WE had a buys weekend- The Lincoln Mile and then performing at our church.

Week Four-Shoes of Peace and Readiness

The lesson of the week: God gives us peace when we have a relationship with Him. He wants us to be ready to share the message of salvation and peace with others.

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Third Week of Summer-BreastPlates of Righteousness

This week went by rather fast, we had a smaller group with kids visiting their Dads and three kids at Bright Lights.
This week's Bible Study was harder to get for the kids. I discovered that the kids look at the armor as a gift from God, but don't really understand that gift needs to be used. They look at it as protection from hurt, evil and Satan, but don't really understand that each piece of armor comes with an responsibility and an action. For instance God is truth and gives us the Belt of truth to keep us from falling for Satan's lies. In turn we are to be reading the word to know truth and we are to be truthful.
Righteousness is a little harder to explain-It is having a right relationship with God, doing the right thing and being without sin. Since we do sin, once we become a believer we are covered by Jesus' righteousness. The kids understand that God protects their heart with the breastplate of righteousness. But we went over righteousness a million different ways and the importance of being right with God, doing right by God and doing the right thing.
But basically I think that as usual I learned more than the kids.
It is hard to believe that summer is a third over. It is going so fast and already we have a life time of memories.




Kaedyn works on drawing a picture of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, so that we can have righteousness through Christ.

James and Adriyanna read and explain a scripture that talks about Abraham and his faith.

What are you giving God? Your leftovers or your best. I asked the kids if they were a knight giving a gift to the king which ice cream cone would you give the king and which would you keep for yourself. I love asking James these questions, because he is always honest and then as he is saying the answer he realizes he is doing the wrong thing. He picked the best cone for himself.

Tajanay works on her breastplate of righteousness.

TADA- our breastplates of righteousness.

James roller skating.
My week by James.

This week we learned about the Breastplate of Righteousness. Abraham kept believing in God so he had a lot of sons. When we don't do the right thing or listen to God our armor gets holes in it which makes the armor get weak. We learned we need to do the right thing.

We made breastplates this week.

We learned some new songs- I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N, I Stand for you and give me Jesus and I'm in the Lord's Army.

We got to go skating.

If these skates could talk. They look like they have been through a lot of adventures.

Ma'Shai and Teijah attended Bright Lights, fashion class this week. They had a really good time designing items to wear and show on the runway.

Savanah attended Bright Lights Clay Craziness Class. She made some really cute things and had a really good time.

Savanah's clay picture frame.

On Friday after Bright Lights we went out for ice cream, it was fun getting to know Ma'Shai's mom.

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More Bright Lights Farm Camp-Parent Day

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Lucky Seven Race

The race was a great experience for all of us. We learned a lot.

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Miss Brenda 3 favorite moments:
Moment One- On Friday night the kids came over for a slumber party so that I could get them to bed and up early for our race. That night we did some sprints. I had seven kids racing and was having them split into groups of 2 to sprint. That left Teijah without a partner and she was looking rather sad. Adriyanna her 6 year old sister looked at her and said, It's ok Teijah, God is running beside you! It just came out of the blue, a wonderful little gem of innocence, beauty and truth.

Moment two- On the way to the race I had four kids in my car and I was telling them that I didn't know what the course looked like and that there may be a hill in the course, (they all gasped), but don't let it worry you or psych you out, because all the other kids are going to think oh no and get tired and slow down on the hill, don't tell yourself you can't do it or it is too hard, this is where you can beat the other kids and when you get to the top of the hill you will get to run down hill and get some new energy. James starts to panic and ask questions about hills. Then Teijah pops in, Miss Brenda may I give an example. I said sure, go for it.
She says, Well I think the mountain is like hard things in our life and the voice telling us to quit is Satan cause he doesn't want us to win. Is that right Miss Brenda- I almost fell out of the car, every Mom, Dad, mentor, teacher, pastor prays for a moment like this when the things you have been teaching your kids finally hits them and they get it. I said that is right Teijah, and God wants us to keep going through the hard stuff and get to the top of the hill so we can see over the other side and enjoy the down hill and the better times with Him. But we miss out if we don't climb the hill.

Moment three- James has no confidence, it has taken months to get him to run, and just in the last week he has started to believe in himself and train hard, his times are coming down. I told him to start out the race slow, he was so sure he was going to win the race. I told him to stay behind Alexis because she knows how to pace the race. Sure enough the gun goes off and James takes off like a rocket, with the boys taking off after him ( the were supposed to stay close to him). I am yelling you are going to fast you are going to fast. But away they went. At the end of the race James ended up totally pooped and did come in Fifth, but he really wanted a big Medal like Alexis and Jevon's for finishing 2nd and 3rd. So on the way home I asked him what he had learned from the race. He said start out slower and tie your shoes tight! I looked at him funny and said tie your shoes tight? He said yeah I was running and my shoe went flying off my foot and rolled down a hill, so I had to run down the hill get my shoe, put it on and get back in the race. We all had a good laugh over that. There were no hills in the race for the other kids, but James did get his hill and he didn't quit.

I was really proud of all our kids they were good sports and finished the race as hard as they could.

Week 2, Belt of Truth

Putting on the Belts of Truth

Friday Night- Slumber Party- We had a little slumber party for the kids who were going to run early Saturday morning. Did some sprints, watched a movie and had some healthy food.

My week-by Julian

On Monday I started Farm Camp. I love it. I saw kittens, they scratched. Cat's play. We made ice cream and butter. We made strawberry pie at Bright Lights. We also saw miniture horses, we even saw sheep we went to a dairy farm and saw cows.

At Obasi We did arts and crafts and if we had a good attitude we got to listen to music. We did a pants game and I almost beat the blue team. It was awesome.

During Bible Study, we acted out the story and i was the angel. I learned that the word of God is the TRUTH, and God doesn't lie to me.

Friday-Bright Lights Programs

Kaedyn and his Dr. Seuss Class

Mom and Kaedyn

Kaedyn in his hat he made in class

Jevon shows me his space projects

Jevon and one of his teachers

Adriyanna at Farm School
My Week- by Adriyanna

At Farm camp I held a cat, petted and rode a horse. I played with the kitties. I petted a sheep. The big cat didn't do anything but play. Me and Julian went to play with the cats and I read a book and we got to eat ice cream. My friend got hurt and I said are you ok. and she said yes and went oh. I got scratched and I helped my friend by telling the teacher she was hurt.

At Obasi we went to the library, I played instruments like the violin and saxaphone. I also played on the computer, the computer games were Clifford and Arthur. In Bible Study this week I learned that God protects me with the belt of truth.

Adriyanna would have been happy holding kitties all week.

Adriyanna at the Dairy Farm

Future Bull rider

Thursday- Making Belts of Truth and Trago Park
Below the faces of Concentration-it is a beautiful thing!
James
Cortesia and Alexis

Kaedyn

Ma'Shai

Jevon

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Wacky Wednesday.
Today was good. We found some songs on the utube to go along with our summer theme. The kids were really into it and begging to sing the songs. So that was really fun. We started belts of truth, finished some worksheets, and practiced our 1 mile race. I am so proud of James and Kaedyn. Both of these boys have been slow getting into the running mode. When James and Kaedyn started running they both were over 15 minutes. We would try to explain to them it would get easier if kept trying. James doesn't always believe he can do something when it gets hard, so we have to do a lot of encouraging to keep him going. On Tuesday James got his time down to an 8:15 and Kaedyn down to a 8:35. Kaedyn is only 6 and all of a sudden this week he has become so focused when he runs. I told them that soon they would be down to a 7:30. James looked at me and said nope that is too hard. I said but look you are said you would never run a 8:30 and now you are running an 8:15. He said, yeah but that is because I worked hard, I will never do it. Today it was hot, but they were positive and they ran like the wind. They came in with a 7:54. It was so amazing to see them do something they don't think they can do. I want so bad for them to see that in other areas of their lives too.

Later when I was taking kids home, we witnessed a little girl getting hit by a truck. It was pretty tramatic experience, we don't know what happened to the little girl but it looked pretty bad. It was great reminder of how precious life can be. It was a time to teach the kids to pray and take things a little more serious.



Adriyanna and Julian getting on the bus for Farm Camp at Bright Lights.

Wacky Wednesday for Kaedyn at Dr. Seuss Class

Adriyanna runs fast in our big pants verse relay!!

Cortesia's team tries to put our week's verse together.


Tuesday.
It was a hard day with the teenagers today, a lot of bickering and bad attitudes. Later in the day I was reminded that when God wants to really teach us something He walks us through trials. So when we got back from our fieldtrip, we a time to think and then write on the blackboard a lie we were believing that caused us to stumble during the day. Even the teens had a moment of reflection and humbling, so I pray that they make better decisions in the future.
The younger kids had so much fun playing the Lincoln Synphony Instruments at the South Branch Library.

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Monday, Monday
AS Mondays go this was a pretty sweet Monday, actually truth be told, that being our theme and all this week, it was a sweet day no matter what day it was. Haven't had one of these in a very long time. Don't get me wrong it wasn't perfect. But every one was trying to get along, trying to do their best, trying to get the lesson. Instead of being trying, THEY WERE TRYING. Does my heart good.

Kaedyn with his Bright Lights teacher, he is taking a Dr. Seuss class.

This week the four younger kids are at Bright Lights. Early mornings for me. Jevon is taking a outer space class and Adriyanna and Julian are taking Farm School. When I picked them up at noon, they all were so excited to tell me about their morning. Adriyanna announced that tomorrow they were going to take wood shavings off of sheep and then put them on a picture. I had to think about that one for a minute, but thankfully I have had others to go to farm school and I have been raised around sheep. I figured out that they were shearing sheep and that they were going to take some of the wool and put on their sheep pictures. Therefore Wood (wool)shavings!!!! She kills me. She tries so hard to learn new things and share them with us, her new words get confused with some of her old words, but she is one smart cookie and puts things together pretty fast.

Today the kids wrote down lies that the world and Satan try to tell us to get us to do the wrong thing. Then we taped them to Alexis over sized pants that were being held up with the belt of truth or God's word. Alexis kept reminding us of how heavy all that sin was getting.

boys team looking up verses

Another sweet moment, Cortesia was very tender and helpful with Adriyanna and Taj, helping them find and read a verse.
My week-by Cortesia

On Monday we did Bible Study, we took pants put them on Alexis and wrote lies down on pieces of paper. and stuck them on to Alexis' pants it was very fun. What I learned from that game was that when you have a lie you have a lot of weight on you and you don't feel good. Like we are reading Pilgrims Progress, there's a man with a burden on his back and a book in his hand. He was exhausted with the burden on his back.

Tuesday we went to the library and played instruments. When I was their I learned that when you don't feel good you can still try your best. Wednesday we made belts of truth. It's a beautiful project. We also played a game wheer we had to put these pants on, very big pants and run down the driveway and grab a word to the verse we are learning. Then we put all the words together to make our verse.

After we wrote down lies we looked up scripture to find truth and then we took the papers off the pants that the Bible proved were lies.

James who is trying really hard to work on his listening skills this summer, jumps up in the middle of the lesson and is so excited, I got it, I got it! Sin weighs us down and God helps us with truth. He was so proud.

Points for the day.
God is Truth
In order to know what a lie is you have to know truth, so read God's word and He will show you the truth and the right thing to do!
The belt of truth holds everything together. Without truth you have nothing.

My week-by Teijah

This week I learned about the belt of truth, it is part of the armor of God. And we stuck lies on my sister's pants. On Tuesday we went to the library. the bad part about it was I had a bad attitude but when we got back to Miss Brenda's I realized that I was really stupid to believe in Satan's lies. On Wednesday we arts and crafts with musi in between it was really fun and learned this son called I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N, it is a good song.